true hope
by Yui Miyamoto
Summary: Hiro wanders Tokyo in search of people who no longer exist…


**fandom: Gravitation**  
**title: true hope.**  
**pairing: hiro + shuichi**  
**rating: pg**  
**Description – Hiro wanders Tokyo in search of people who no longer exist…**

**Disclaimer – Gravitation isn't mine.**

In this world we call 'reality', there is a slight fear in 'waking up'. To face the day from the moment you open your eyes is something most people take for granted. But I will tell you that the people who are insomniacs, they are the ones that want the day to last to every single half-second in the night. Even if the midnight hour has passed, it still isn't 'the next day' until they fall asleep.  
Sometimes, that could last for many, MANY hours.

In this constant need to stay up, are you really awake?

For when we met, I am sure that I was in between that state: not quite with eyes wide open nor with a full conscious mind.

I hated to go to sleep.

**true hope.  
By miyamoto yui**

I still live in that apartment you used to visit any time of the day.

Although there is really nothing to look at, from far away, there is a nice view of a row of trees on the street. It is the only place that is illuminated with nothing but pale pink that looks almost like snow.

I put on my md and leave it on repeat.

**Everyday is mine  
That's what you said to me.  
Selfish, but true.  
I thought you didn't like me.  
So I didn't expect you to  
Ever look my way.**

_I started to talk as I picked up a bunch of manga and magazines from the table in the middle of the den. Then, I tried to throw away all the cigarette butts away in the kitchen. Uneasily, I said, "Make yourself at home-"_

_But I already saw you going out to the small balcony. It was the creaky one that I hated to sit on but always did anyway because it seemed amusing enough to be so close to death and see if I could push my limits. Silly, but true to my nature.  
The wood creaked under your feet as you strained your eyes to look at the row of cherry blossoms. How could something so pretty exist where a bunch of old houses were falling apart?  
It seemed so unnatural._

_You didn't think of anything but the sight before you. "WOW~!"  
You were always shallow that way._

_I, who had not given any second to that sight, always smoked and looked at it indifferently. Flowers were beautiful, but what more could they do._

_THIS is what it could do._

_The wood creaked and I pulled his hand, worried he would fall over._

_"Why?!" he pouted. "You said to make myself at home!"_

_"That balcony is chipping itself away. And knowing your luck-"  
"Yeah, my luck is that bad, isn't it?" He looked down to the ground in self-pity._

_I just patted his head. If you only knew that your luck spread outside of yourself and embraced you so much it couldn't handle it but to give you some 'bad things' as well.  
He became a stubborn ball._

_Without realizing it, I carried him and threw him onto the street where the petals engulfed him. With a wide smile, he laughed and laughed as if we had all the time in the world to think of 'the future'.  
But all I could think of was the clock that started to tick backwards. I could feel time running away from me and it didn't care if I wasn't carried along with it._

**Was this the person I wanted to become?  
When I look at the multi-colored leaves  
And the petals from so many flowers,  
How many seasons have passed  
When you told me  
'don't ever look back'?**

Smoking another cigarette, I stare at the blank sky listlessly. How can something so blue be nothing but a reflection of the ocean? It seems so absurd yet beautiful, just like memories you know you'll never visit again.  
I sit on the banister, hoping it'd fall. And then I get mad at myself for such a thought.

In the stillness of the Spring, I know that you are hidden among the millions of mixed, soft, colored petals. There are leaves that have the fingers of small, chubby children's green hands too. Unexpectedly, I find you in the heat of an unusual season and it isn't even Summer. Didn't I meet you in the Fall where the trees turned to brown and then shriveled into almost nothing but thin branches?

I hang my head in shame and scratch it with frustration with my cigarette still in between my thin fingers. I really have not been taking care of myself.

After all these years, how could it come to this? Was it because you saved me on that cold Spring night that you come to me over and over again?

Whenever I am lost, it is you that I always find myself coming back to.

When did you become my foundation?

I am sure that you are always inside of me whenever I try to find you.

**I won't cut corners  
I won't look back  
I'll always be the person  
You loved me for,  
Honest even  
Down to the tears.**

In denial, I smash my cigarette into an astray inside the living room as I quickly leave my apartment. I go to the nearest train station and get on the train. I don't even really know what line I am on. It is so funny how you can live somewhere for so long and not know where anything is because you rode your bike or car everywhere.

I somehow end up in Chiba. I suddenly want to see that large ferris wheel we never touched. You always cried to go there, but one day you did…

…to find me there.

I walk and see many families together. It seems strange for a young man almost reaching thirty going over to such a place by himself. But I just stop walking as I come a little bit closer to the sea. I am almost overwhelmed by the glass structure that stands between me and the coast. It's the same one that I said looked like a boxed ocean with no water inside. It was just transparent blue glass that people can walk through to the top, as far as the third floor.

Called by the ocean, I walk through the small rectangular opening to scan the sand and the grass around me.  
The green of the sea is like the shimmering of the scales of a fish, but the blue is that of the dye of rain.

It reminds me of that time early in the morning when everything was quiet. You stood behind me as I walked towards the water without any thought for anything or anyone else. I could only see the water holding out its hands to me.  
The sound of the waves kept on splashing inside of my ears until I felt the coldness within my being and I hadn't even touched it yet.

_"Hiro…Hiro!"  
But onward, I kept on walking, not hearing anything. I could only hear a murmur in my confused mind._

_Suddenly, the wind caught me and I caught my breath, almost drowning within the air itself.  
"What are you doing?!" He shook me as he hugged me from behind, crying over and over. "Why did I know you'd be here?"_

_I opened my eyes and looked in back of me.  
Why were you there?_

_Why were we both in half-covered with salt and ocean water?  
_

Once, I thought of myself as a broken doll. A long time ago, no one wanted touch me because there was nothing to do with something that no one could understand. And then it was you who brought me away from the dust-filled shelf.

**Oh, if I could only turn back,  
Did I do the right thing in doing everything  
For you  
Except telling you to your face?**

**I hate myself for being a coward  
To those words that it wasn't me.  
I admire myself for being brave enough  
To step back and take you on  
With all my strength.**

With your kindness, hidden among layers of dirt, your words meant so much to me. They reached me in the darkness that I somehow found myself blind to. Though I did nothing malicious to others, there was always a part of me that I couldn't escape.

It was that selfish loneliness that couldn't ever leave me. Like a jealous lover, it never wanted to leave me alone if I paid any attention to anyone or anything else.

If you saw me now, what would you say?

Before I know it, I turn around from the bridge. I don't even turn around to see the coast where you saved me. I just leave.  
I wander from station to station. There is no particular place to go, but I feel I have to go on and off or else I will think more than I am now. I have to believe I am going somewhere inside my mind.

Everything else in life is going the way it should. My mind is okay, but my heart always seems to go backwards…

Catching up with me, the brilliant colors keep on going into the night. I wander the quiet streets of Shibuya where the crowds rarely visit, away from the bustle of shopping, karaoke, and bars.  
I end up watching in the glass walkway above the expressways. I watch the glare of lights move slowly and quickly with every light change.

Do you remember me? We met during the day and then at night, I was always searching for you in my dreams.

I couldn't ever get enough of you.

I am sure there are things that you didn't like about me, but I can't seem to let go of you. I feel that if I do, then I will start to forget. All the colors of the memories will fade.

They will crumble within their own weight. I realize that now.

**I am sure that all I have within myself  
Will soon swallow itself away,  
Cleaning what it will,  
Making you even better than you were.**

**But still, this is the you  
I have inside my head.**

**I'll hide away somewhere.  
Actually, I have been here  
All this time  
Watching you.**

Yesterday, as I made some emails from the years that have passed, I only remembered specks of things that came so easily before. Maybe that is why I am so sure to say thank you at the time and don't ever forget.

Without you, none of the stories within my music would have ever come to life.

I cannot say anything to anyone, but the rough sketches of the places where we used to go remain in a drawer for safe keeping. I won't ever give them to you. They are as honest as pictures.

They are mediocre but they are my treasures.

Like the lyrics of my songs, they hold all my memories of you. They interact and intermingle. They meet and at times, they do not.

But the feelings are strong enough to paint the colors and lines I can't do with my drawings.

**I can no longer imagine your face.  
Even though you keep on calling  
To meet with me  
I keep saying no  
Because I am afraid  
Of finding**

**That I'll always be the same.**

I walk again. I don't know how long, but I end up there.  
That park where we first met. The one near the school.

I almost want to hit the poor tree pouring its snowy petals onto my head as I hang my head down and cry.

After all this, why must you remain until now? Is it sick of me to think of you in this way? Maybe you think that I am nothing now but some alert on your cell phone, but does that mean I am so important that I am on 'alert'? I don't understand you at all.  
Did I do something that ever made an impression on you? I am sure I was just a sad boy that always held you when you cried, but cried by himself right behind you when you weren't looking. I didn't want you to see. But you have to know that I never cried in front of anyone before I met you.

I cried but I couldn't give myself to them for their love and protection.  
You, whom I had just met, I could trust.

Is that how people feel about me now, I wonder?  
Is that why they trust me? Did you pass your wonderful charm to me?

But everyone says it's mine. I don't think so. The person that became afraid of letting things go would not ever have become this strong. I would not have enjoyed life as I do now. Even when all the stakes are against me, you are always at the base, as if my life started the day that you saved me from jumping down.  
Do you know that you are the only one who would ever do that for me? Maybe that is why I will always fall for that kind of character over and over. Somehow in stories on the net, novels, anime, manga, dramas…everywhere…

Inside each of these 'people', you are there, don't you know that?  
You are in the songs, old and new, and you are within me brighter than ever.

I start to run from myself until I find my apartment. I drink some umeshu from the fridge and slip to the ground as I lean against the sliding door leading to the balcony.  
There are no more tears that can come out, but they pile more and more within me with no way of ever getting out.

In that moment of my weakest self, you were there to see me. No one else, not even the closest to me has known this much. No one will probably ever be strong enough to see that part of me.

I want to dream of you again. I need you tell me things even though you told me that was one of the blackest periods of you life. But to me, you are the brightest. The cold air after the Spring heat always tells me of that night.

For one moment, though, you were entirely mine. I tended to not realize that all your love and care never changed. It was me who changed in relation to you, and I was afraid you would truly see all the feelings that I harbored for you.

I will always be like that mermaid that looks at her prince, whom makes the decision that it was someone else who saved him because of his eyes. Now, I understand that this is the course of my life.  
If you didn't teach me these things, I would be weaker than before.  
I would be alone now with no one.

**You are the legend of my heart.**

**I will swim to always look for you.**

I don't know whether I should curse or praise you for keeping me alive. Why did I believe you?

As the April sun shines into warm May, there is always a sunset that tells me of that time.

Or the morning you came up to me.

_"I am tired of being here."  
In that grown up voice that always came out at the worst of times, you told me: "You can't leave me alone, Hiro. If you can't do it for yourself. Think of me."_

Why did you make me stay here?!

I want to go back to those times. They were my sense of peace.  
I've not had that again. Contentedness, but not true peace. My mind is plagued by all kinds of problems that maybe I deserve for being too easygoing and forgiving towards everyone. In order to receive grace, you have to give a lot of things. You have to perform more than the required.  
I don't know what I did, but Kamisama was always good to me.

He sent you, didn't he?

Yes, locked in each memory, whether or not you are here, you are there somewhere. I can always feel you.

You are always haunting me.  
Why do I continue to love your memory when I am sure you've moved beyond me already?

You were the only one who looked after me like that.

Everyone was probably right about one thing, though, that I would always fall for the person that took care of me. But you let me do as I pleased. You only scolded me when I was out of order.  
I didn't know that before, or is it that I refine those things that experience over and over in my head?

My heart aches.

At that moment, I feel the vibration of my phone and you leave a voice message. You say that you like the new song that's out on the radio. It's the one that I've played over and over all day…

"Stupid Shuichi…"

**Yes, I am sure.  
When I look at your eyes  
You will see the person I am  
So clearly  
Along with all my feelings**

**That I could never hide.**

I cannot cry and sob uncontrollably because I don't want to show it, even to myself anymore. But here, my heart and soul are splattered. Only my weakening remains because logic wants to make sense of this madness.

Have I turned into a mermaid because of you? I will be bright and young. I will sing and be gentle, but at night, I will be alone in my water cage?  
In my own tears, I look at the bubbles…

Where do I live now?  
Is this the future or the past?

**I keep running from place to place  
But you keep on following me.  
You have forgotten me  
But your past self  
Is always within my present one.**

**I can't ever tell you  
How much I'll always  
Bury myself under those sakura petals  
That are as fine as white sand.**

But you keep reappearing.  
Maybe that's why I like the smell of strawberry. That's what your mouth tasted like when I pecked you on the lips before I turned away.

Thank you. That's all I can say to you.

Having 'told' you this, I can now sleep until I wake up to a day I will look forward to somehow without you, afraid of also knowing that the feeling remains but the two people of the past are no longer here.

But why do I still need you even if I don't want you to love me anymore?

Deep inside, I know now I must have been precious enough for you to give up. For when you choose these things, at these important times, you realize what you are capable of and what you aren't. I cannot speak for you,

but maybe I think of you because you think of me too?

Bringing myself to tears, I'd like to tell myself that.

Whenever there is something bad in life, more than losing my life, I fear the chance to meet you all over again.

Yes indeed, I may not have changed. I am still that boy that loves someone without wanting to be loved in return, just wanting the purity of receiving the other's affections of their own free will. But only a few are like that in the world.

Yes, we are only a few.

I met you. How long, if there is another, must I wait?

**I didn't expect anything from anyone until you came.  
I learned 'true hope'.  
That is all I have.**

**You are everything.  
Selfishly, I won't let anyone take that away from me.**

**Not even a photo, this is all I have. It is all that remains of you.**

**I cannot draw you but I keep on sketching the places we used to go to, even if my mind keeps on erasing the edges away, little by little,**

**with time.**

Now, whenever I wake up and find that I didn't meet you, I am so disappointed to open my eyes to face this world that holds you close enough for me to feel you but far enough for me to not ever see you.  
No, not even when I close my eyes, I can no longer see your face.

It blends into the places we once shared together.

I do not know if that is good or bad, but I want to believe…

To believe that you looked at me the way I looked at you.  
Even for a split-second.

I don't hate to sleep anymore.

**Burying myself underwater  
With memories of you,  
The seasons and the moon  
Are the only ones who know  
Anything about me.**

**Yes, at all.**

**Owari. / The End.**  
**-  
Author's note –** These days it is hard for me to write the notes because the reason I've been writing is to express a lot of the painful things that have been torturing my head. In the end, as genki as I am, the other extreme part of myself is so reserved and utterly quiet. And within this seriousness, this is the person that writes to you.

Going back in time, the seasons remind me of the past and the people I've met.

Thank you for reading.

Love,  
Yui

**5/16/2007 7:54:46 AM – LA**  
**5/16/07 11:54 PM - Tokyo**


End file.
